Holograms have been used to enhance the appearance of packages for many years. They have been formed on labels and substrates that are applied to and are used as a layer on the surface of packages, such as cartons. However, the conventional hologram image on packages is expensive and usually requires the production of a hologram containing laminate film and the bonding of this film to a package surface. This requires several processing steps and costly materials. It would be more efficient and less costly to form the hologram on the packaging material in line with the printing of other image and information onto the packaging material.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,889,598 there is disclosed the printing of a hologram onto a surface followed by the printing of another image onto the same surface. The hologram design is embossed onto the surface followed by a metallizing of the hologram design surface, in turn followed by the cutting of the surface into sheets for subsequent printing of other image and information. This process requires the subsequent metallizing of the embossed hologram design. This metallizing is by a relatively slow vapor deposition process. U.S. Pat. No. 5,003,915 discloses the forming of a hologram directly onto the desired end product paper or other sheet material. However, after the embossing of a hologram design there is a required step of metallizing the hologram surface. This could be by vapor deposition to produce a reflective film or refractive layer onto the hologram. A protective layer can be coated over this hologram. U.S. Pat. No. 6,979,487 discloses the printing of textured pattern over a substrate. A reflective ink or foil can be deposited or laminated onto this textured pattern layer. This produces an effect of depth and dimensionality. This is interesting but does not disclose the production of a hologram. This process would be inoperable to produce a holographic image. U.S. Pat. No. 6,638,386 discloses the technique of forming a holographic image or a diffraction grating image onto a composite sheet and the subsequent attachment of this sheet to a substrate. This involves the operation of separately forming the hologram on a composite sheet and applying this composite sheet onto a substrate to produce the finished hologram on a package or other item. All of these processes have the differing drawbacks. However, all are less efficient than the holograms on a package surface produced by the present processes.
The present processes produce a hologram image directly on the package surface solely through printing steps. Further, no subsequent metallizing steps are required. Such steps which usually involve the vapor deposition of a metal, such as aluminum, onto a hologram surface are relatively slow as compared to printing techniques and require specialized equipment. In the present processes a hologram image is produced on a substrate solely through the use of printing techniques and equipment.